


for now I am your fool

by Narraboth



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Theatre, F/F, Short One Shot, Unresolved Sexual Tension, gays who regularly lose their minds reading twelfth night make some noise!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-14
Updated: 2020-05-14
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:20:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24181219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Narraboth/pseuds/Narraboth
Summary: It’s unprofessional to fall in love with your co-star on your first major gig. Kara keeps telling herself that, keeps reciting it in her head desperately and hoping it might stick. It’s just bad form, an unnecessary complication, a whole minefield.The thing is, it’s very hardnotto, when your co-star is Lena Luthor.
Relationships: Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor
Comments: 38
Kudos: 463





	for now I am your fool

It’s unprofessional to fall in love with your co-star on your first major gig. Kara keeps telling herself that, keeps reciting it in her head desperately and hoping it might stick. It’s just bad form, an unnecessary complication, a whole minefield.

The thing is, it’s very hard _not_ to, when your co-star is Lena Luthor. 

It’s even harder when you play the reluctant object of her overflowing affections, as Kara finds out barely two weeks into their rehearsals of _Twelfth Night_ at the National City Theatre. They are working through Act III Scene 1, the second big scene between their characters that is, by all accounts, an aggressive come-on, and Lena goes at it like an all-out attack, no holds barred. Kara thinks she’s bound to get a heart-attack sometime from the way Lena mixes self-deprecation, vulnerability, and simmering repression, with sultry seduction sprinkled on top. She _did_ almost faint the first time she heard Lena’s voice drop down an octave into a husky and terribly suggestive tone on “ _But, would you undertake another suit, I had rather hear you to solicit that than music from the spheres”_.

It does not get better as the scene progresses. Kara zones out after _“A cypress, not a bosom, hideth my heart”_ , when her eyes flicker down without even meaning to, getting a good look at the bosom in question, and then barely has the presence of mind to croak out _“I pity you”_ in response.

Perhaps it’s not so much _falling in love_ as _lusting after_. Kara can’t quite place it. She’s not sure if it makes much of a difference, either, all things considered.

The worst of it comes when they get to the second part of the scene, Olivia’s confession. The stage directions are quite simple: Lena drawing closer to her, step by step, until Kara’s backed up against a mock-up wall, desperately ducking away from the kiss Lena’s Olivia tries to plant on her at the end of her speech. Simple and clean. A freshman theatre major could stumble through it unscathed.

It goes predictably awry when Kara just lets it happen. She doesn’t jerk away, doesn’t squirm or jump when Lena cups her jaw, holding her head firm, and leans in, her breath hot against Kara’s lips as she murmurs _“Love sought is good, but given unsought better”_. She stands instead, mesmerized as Lena watches her through half-lidded eyes, her breath hitching when Lena decides to lean a little bit closer and bumps their noses together. Kara doesn’t want this moment to ever end, wants to be suspended in it until her heart gives out. (That might come in like two minutes, anyways, and Kara would like to savour this experience as long as it lasts.)

“Ad-libbing much, ladies?”

Cat Grant’s voice cuts through the haze like a knife, like a bucket of ice-cold water dumped directly over Kara’s head. She slumps against the wall, mortified, while Lena draws slightly back, keeping a hand still propped against the wall by Kara’s waist.

“I think it was working rather well,” she says, so calm and nonchalant that it just makes Kara’s cheeks burn even harder. Cat gives them a withering look.

“I didn’t mind it,” she declares. “I’d just like to hear some reasoning when my original directions are unceremoniously disposed of.”

Kara lets out a little cough.

“It makes sense, I think, like…” She wanders off first, hesitant, until she sees the encouraging little nod Lena gives her, urging her on. “It just adds a bit more depth than Viola just emphatically hating the thought of being courted by a woman. I mean, there’s already the whole Act I wooing scene to play off of. We can do better than _straight by any means necessary_ , right?”

“The original Viola character does kiss Olivia in the play that Shakespeare used as his inspiration,” Nia helpfully supplies from the sidelines. _Grinning_ , for some reason. “I think they might even have sex at some point.”

Lena raises an eyebrow.

“Now there’s a novel thought,” she muses, her eyes fixed on Kara’s face, and Kara thinks her knees might give out.

“This isn’t Germany, Miss Luthor,” Cat chides, rolling her eyes. “We work with the text we have, not the one we’d like to have.” She regards the two of them silently, staring so cuttingly for so long that Kara starts fidgeting, wishing the stage just opened up and swallowed her whole. “But we’ll try it your way,” she finally announces. “With a kiss this time. No lingering, though.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Lena nods, smirking, then turns to Kara again, raising her eyebrow. “You’re ready for it?”

She most definitely is not. She’s probably gonna die, or if not, she’s unquestionably gonna have to deal with some very vivid dreams tonight. But like a tragic hero taking on her fate, Kara takes a big breath, straightens up, and nods.

“Let’s do it.”


End file.
